The Unyielding Future Page 8
“What about if it was him or Maggie Dale? What if she could only be saved if someone killed the bad guy? You can’t really disagree with that can you?” It was like arguing with my wife. I shuddered to think what Mia would be like in ten or fifteen years. She would probably move to Waco and set up a cult.
“Don’t you want to talk about where babies come from instead?”
She sat up and punched my shoulder as hard as she could. “Don’t be gross.”
“Okay I won’t be gross,” I said, and belched for a good five seconds. “Now, go and ask your mother those questions and then come back and tell me what she said.”
“No. You have to go in and get ready for Mass.” She obviously thought I could use as much church as possible so that one day I would catch up to her theological understanding.
Ten minutes later Leah brought me the clothes she wanted me to wear to Mass. If I understand the typical American marriage correctly, this is not an uncommon or unusual division of labor. She picks out the clothes and I wear them. “Did you talk with Mia?” I had just finished showering, and we only had a few minutes of alone time.
“She wants to kill the bastard that took that girl, and I don’t blame her.” Leah was busy fluffing, or combing or doing something with her hair and was giving me only a small fraction of her attention. “I told her to go talk to you.”
“Thanks. By the way, I’m cancelling the automatic weapon I was going to buy for her birthday.”
“Okay,” she said, now hurrying into the closet.
“I’m going to buy her an elephant instead. One that can ride a tricycle and do taxes. What do you think?” I was now more dressed than she was.
She said, “All right,” and then my sarcasm caught up to her. “Very funny. Can you hurry? I don’t want to walk in late and give people even more of an opportunity to gawk.” She rushed by me a little more than half-dressed.
“I’ll wait for you in the car. As usual.” I left our bathroom before I got an earful of how hard it is to get all these people ready while I do is just get myself ready.
Ten minutes later, all five of us were in the car, heading to church. Rain pounded the roof of the car, and we all listened to it quietly.
As a complete aside, I am reminded of a similar trip to St. Catherine Catholic Church on another rainy Sunday morning years earlier. It was also spring, and Mia, who is becoming the star of this chapter, was quietly sitting in her car seat. She was only about three at the time and being quiet was not her forte. We were enjoying the respite from her nonstop banter when she said very simply, “You shouldn’t squeeze rolly-pollys.” For those of you not familiar with rolly-pollys, they are small insects, sort of a cross between a beetle and a centipede. They are not the most attractive insect, but in spring they are one of the most abundant. “Yellow stuff comes out,” she finished. I was driving, so I couldn’t turn, but Leah spun in her seat to find her darling daughter squeezing small squirmy insects and then wiping their guts all over her dress. All five of us to some degree are reminded of that precious moment when we are driving in the rain. Telling that story always makes me feel better. Now back to a not-so-precious reality.
Our drive to church is a relatively short four miles (relatively short for Austin). Our route is straight and flat except for a single overpass just before our exit. Traffic on an early Sunday morning is generally light, again by Austin standards, and we can usually drive the speed limit, but on that morning the torrential downpour had reduced us to a snail’s pace. I was having a hard time seeing even with the wipers on maximum. About a half mile before the bridge, a Porsche blew by us, literally blew by, in a rooster-tail of rain at least ten feet high. I just caught a glimpse of the driver’s profile, and the most I could tell was that it was probably a male. Fully loaded, our Denali is about seven thousand pounds, and the small sports car’s wake nearly pushed us into the median.
“What a jerk,” I said, keeping my language clean for the children. Leah’s comment was a little more colorful. My view was obscured for several moments, and I tapped the brakes. When I had regained control and my windshield finally cleared, I saw the most unusual sight. A flying tanker truck. To be more exact, it was just the tanker; the truck part had slammed into the bridge abutment. I watched with disbelief as the tanker spun in mid-air, its wheels spinning madly, and then flipped upside down landing astride a passing school bus. It was one of those surreal moments when everyone asks themselves if that really just happened. A second later, when the fuel inside the tanker ignited, there was no question whether it had just happened.
I have had very little previous personal experience with pyrotechnics and exploding tanker trucks. Like most Americans, my expectations were crafted in Hollywood, but the reality fell far short. The blast wasn’t an ear-shattering explosion that makes everyone cover their ears; it was a deep, low-frequency “whoop” that I felt more in my bones. The flash, however, was worthy of an Academy Award, and like all the drivers around me I was completely blinded for an instant. I slammed on my brakes and skidded to a stop close enough to the burning tanker to feel the heat through our windows. I quickly backed away as far as I could, maneuvering around the half dozen or so cars that had also come to a screeching halt, when Leah screamed that there were people in the bus.
I looked up and saw that the front half of the bus was crushed under the weight of the burning tanker, but that the back half, though blackened by the flash and twisted by the impact, was still relatively intact. I also saw hands pounding at the windows and rear door.
I’m no hero, at least consciously, but a moment later I found myself outside in the rain trying to get as close to the bus as possible. I have no recollection of leaving my vehicle. Leah tells me that I had jammed the Denali into park and then jumped from the car before it had completely stopped moving (which of course is mechanically impossible, but she knows nothing about transmissions). I think it took a few seconds for my sensible, keep-me-alive-and-unburned mind to recover from the shock of the accident and my impulsive you-can’t-be-hurt mind must have stepped in to fill the void. The heat from the burning fuel was baking the skin of my face and arms despite the rain. I took a step forward, but the heat forced me back. People were shouting something about the bus exploding and warning me to get out of there. I could see the faces of the people in the back of the bus. They were all old. It was a church bus that had been gathering the elderly and driving them to Mass. A downdraft of wind blew smoke and steam all around me, and in an instant the world behind me was obscured. It was just me and the dozen or so old people, who were probably already burning alive. I tried another step but couldn’t get closer than ten feet. My lungs began to burn, and I dropped to my knees coughing uncontrollably. I was seeing stars when I felt a hand touch my shoulder and then help me to my feet. A familiar set of blue eyes stared back at me.
“I’ll take care of this,” Adis said into the howling of the rain, wind, steam and flames. Still, I heard him clear as a bell.
Without a trace of hesitation, he walked straight up to the emergency exit and wrenched it open. Splinters of the metal hinges flew by my head and the large door clattered to the asphalt. Immediately, bodies began to tumble out, burned, but alive. Adis jumped up into the bus, and more survivors found their way out. I screamed at them to move this way but they either couldn’t hear me or couldn’t move. Finally, I forced myself into the furnace and grabbed a couple of the fallen and dragged them away from the inferno. Burning wasn’t as bad as I had imagined, and I was able to make three or four trips before I couldn’t breathe or move anymore. By that time others had arrived and began to pull the fallen to safety. I was one of the fallen.
I know that there are different versions of this story, and you would have to have been living under a rock not to hear at least one, but this is what really happened. I did not drive the trucker off the road to deflect accusations that I was involved with the kidnapping of Maggie Dale. I am not a member of any radical group, and that includes, al-Qae
da of Austin, Righteous Thunder, the National Democratic Party, or the Republican National Committee. More important, I did not imagine Adis walking through an inferno and saving eighteen lives as a number of organizations and prominent individuals have suggested. This last point needs emphasis, so let me make it absolutely clear. It was not me who opened that door, and it was not me who saved those people. I would love to accept the acclaim and accolades, but I don’t deserve it. If it had only been me out there every one of those people would have died. Period.
Chapter Nine